Will upcoming Palestinian local elections pave way for general elections?
The Oct. 8 municipal elections, which will take place throughout Gaza and the West Bank, will be an indicator of which direction the Palestinians want to take; but all eyes will be on Gaza whose residents have not had a voice about their future leadership since 2006.
In October 2012, a previously unknown English professor was nominated by the Fatah movement for mayor of Bethlehem. Vera Baboun, a mother of five, beat a male opponent supported by the Islamic Hamas movement and has become a well-known icon in Bethlehem and the world. Since her election, Baboun has met Pope Francis, US President Barack Obama and other world leaders, and has attended the annual Christmas Eve mass (held three times on Dec. 24) every year since.
The decision of Fatah to nominate a respected woman rather than the usual party activists was taken as a result of the 2006 parliamentary defeat and the desire to win. But the Fatah movement is more divided now than ever and Palestinian satisfaction with President Mahmoud Abbas is at a low 34%, according to a June 7 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Nearly 2 million Palestinians are eligible to vote in 141 municipalities (local councils) and 275 village councils in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for the Central Elections Commission told Al-Monitor by email.
The Palestinian Basic Law calls for municipal elections once every four years, but since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, only two municipal elections have taken place. Gaza and the West Bank held unified municipal elections in 2004, and that was the last time the Gaza Strip has held municipal elections because of the split between Gaza and the West Bank. In 2012, municipal elections took place in the West Bank only.
